Disney, Vince Gilligan to Make a ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ Adaptation

Disney is producing an adaptation of the Jack and the Beanstalk fable, titled Beanstalk, with Vince Gilligan at the helm. Gilligan, best known for his work on AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, has put together a tentative team to bring the fable to life while aiming for the director’s chair himself.

Gilligan’s team includes screenwriter Thomas Schnauz, who won two Emmys for his writing credits on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Gilligan will also be producing alongside Mark Johnson, another Breaking Bad alum. Disney is producing the movie as a standalone project, without the trappings of other studios like Marvel or Pixar. The most recent take on the beanstalk tale was Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), which earned middling reviews.

Vince Gilligan’s directing career mostly spans his work on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, with little to no movie experience. Based on the tone of Breaking Bad, we might surmise that this take on Jack and the Beanstalk will have a grittier feel than what we’ve come to expect from Disney. This is not Disney’s only project in the works that is not included in its big-hitter studios. Others include a re-up of Bob the Musical as well as a long list of live-action remakes of classic movies to come in the near future, including Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and Tim Burton’s Dumbo .

As it is still in the early development stages, Jack and the Beanstalk has no set release date yet.